The Future of Free Speech

In the past several years technology has made speech dramatically more powerful and free than was conceivable in the past. In 2017, with a highly charged atmosphere locally and globally, the question of how the concept of freedom of speech is going to modernize is coming to the fore. A key issue is how far big internet platforms like Facebook and YouTube will go to clamp down on extremist speech.

This conversation has flared up in the context of a wave of broadly publicized and deeply polarizing events, running the gamut from Google’s dismissal of James Damore to CloudFlare and others dropping Daily Stormer in the wake of Charlottesville to strong language and politics around demonstrations throughout the country.

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It would be an enormous triumph for the U.S. to feel secure enough in its identity to be able to tolerate free speech even as the internet accelerates the sometimes terrible reality of what that entails. It would also be the ultimate sign of our health as a civilization.